Selectmen warily OK senior housing in Meredith

The development agreement for a proposed senior housing project has been approved by selectmen wary that the project will use much of the town's available water capacity.

The Meredith Bay Colony Club, a proposed 85-unit senior housing project, received conditional approval from the Planning Board with the provision that it receive permission from the water and sewer department to connect to town water. The conditions of approval must be documented in the project's development agreement as per town ordinance.

The development agreement was required by the town for the housing project to be hooked up to town water. A series of workshops had been held by the selectmen to examine the agreement with requests for rewording and clarification in other areas.

Engineer Ray Korber of KVPartners presented the revisions in the agreement to the board during Monday's workshop. Revisions included adding a paragraph stating that the town is not obligated to provide water to third parties, deleting references to the town's control over work quality and timeliness and editing the line regarding $100,000 the developer must pay to the town.

Calculating water plant capacity, the town has an available maximum day demand of 29,000 gallons per day. The project is estimated to use 20,000 gallons per day, leaving 9,000 gallons available for other projects.

Selectman Bob Flanders said the calculations for capacity should not include the capacity figures from 2007 due to inaccuracies in measuring equipment in the plant. Korber said the amount of available capacity is based on normal operations of the plant and the 2007 number was "not under normal operations."

The board later agreed by consensus that the 2007 figures would not be included in capacity calculations.

Selectman Colette Worsman expressed concern that hooking up the development to town water would open up the existing service area to more users and more demand.

"We have a form of creep and that could get us into trouble," she said. "I don't want to see landowners in Meredith rush to put in a building to get the capacity that's there just for the capacity."

"I don't want to get stuck on saying, 'we have 9,000 gallons forever,' because I don't believe that," said Board Chair Peter Brothers. "It means we need to be careful."

Brothers said capacity could increase from currently ongoing projects to decrease blow-offs and repairing and replacing water mains as well as through conservation. The ongoing work of the water system committee could also provide information for possible solutions.

The development agreement was unanimously approved during the regular selectmen's meeting.